On: Blood of world's oldest woman hints at limits of l...

[Houshalter]

The longer an organism lives the more it can reproduce, the more copies of it's genes there will be. Any gene that increases (reproductive) lifespan is strongly selected for.

[samatman → Houshalter]

Not correct, though intuitive. Consider each offspring to be 50% of the genes of the parent. A parent with three children is competing with hir own genetics, and losing.

[Houshalter → samatman]

Your reasoning makes no sense. If the parent can live longer they can reproduce more and therefore propagate more of their genes.

[samatman → Houshalter]

It does. 150% (more than the parent) of the genes have teamed up with a foreign 150% of genes against the parent.

[datadata → Houshalter]

It seems like the rate of reproduction rather than total reproductive lifespan is what matters for selection. A longer lifespan at the expense of a lower rate of reproduction would not be selected for.

[Houshalter → datadata]

I don't see any reason why this would require that tradeoff.